{"id":789934,"date":"2026-07-09T06:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T06:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/789934\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T06:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T06:18:15","slug":"canada-wide-nocturnal-bird-sound-migration-tracker-takes-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/789934\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada-wide nocturnal bird sound migration tracker takes flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 5 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

Windsor Morning10:41UWindsor research project tracks nocturnal bird migration from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland<\/p>\n

A pair of graduate students at the University of Windsor are tracking nocturnal bird migration in real time by creating a first of its kind research network across Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Natalie Emerick and Madison Bygrove recently returned to their southwestern Ontario lab after putting up 100 acoustic recorders in places as far west as Vancouver Island and as far east as Newfoundland.<\/p>\n

Some are positioned in open fields, others in places such as people\u2019s backyards. Collected sounds are captured and categorized by an AI software, while the soundwaves and species identifications are available in an open source dashboard format \u2014 using Motus Audio<\/a> technology.<\/p>\n

\"MadisonMadison Bygrove, left, and Natalie Emerick work to install an acoustic device at a house in Dartmouth, N.S. (Submitted by Natalie Emerick)<\/p>\n

The 3D-printed box recorders house a little microphone that points up to the night sky while it funnels and retrieves bird calls.<\/p>\n

Birds communicate at night, either by chirping or by the sound of their flight makes in an effort to stay together and travel in the darkness. However, seeing, identifying and recording them has proven to be a difficult task until now.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of this nocturnal flight call research has ever been done out east or out far east,\u201d Emerick told CBC Radio\u2019s<\/a> Windsor Morning. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re seeing some really cool things right now in places we wouldn’t expect where people who are not \u2018bird people\u2019 who have volunteered to host these recorders on their lands are major parts of these migration monitoring flyways.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Advancements in tracking, recording and logging technologies made their research possible, according to Bygrove \u2014 allowing them to scan through piles of data.<\/p>\n

\"UndergraduateUndergraduate students at the University of Windsor prepare and make alterations to acoustic boxes used in the field to capture nocturnal bird sounds at night. One hundred of the devices have been installed across Canada. (Submitted by Natalie Emerick)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s what started this project,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we didn’t have this software to go through and help us with all these man hours, it would be so many hours. We get like 50 hours a night of data, so that times 100 nights, that would be almost impossible for us to go through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emerick says they started compiling their wish list of spots to place the devices by tapping into Canadian migration monitoring networks, which are oftentimes banding stations where bird populations are already monitored. From there, it ended up being friends of friends of friends, she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have this really interesting mix of people hosting these recorders that are ornithologists or bird people or just people that we happen to know,\u201d Emerick said.<\/p>\n

\"MadisonMadison Bygrove, left, and Natalie Emerick are master’s students at the University of Windsor. Their research project has seen 100 acoustic devices spread across Canada to track nocturnal migratory birds in real-time. (Submitted by Natalie Emerick)<\/p>\n

One thing the two Windsor-based researchers have their eye on is the impact that high artificial night light<\/a> impacts birds and their behaviour, compared to lower artificial light.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see more of these calls between light and dark locations, it’s kind of a signal to us that they’re using this as the way they’re disoriented by this light and they’re using it as a way to call out to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s very confusing for them to see such a bright light,\u201d added Bygrove.<\/p>\n

\"MadisonMadison Bygrove works to install recording devices on a pole at the Weyburn, Sask., wildlife centre. (Submitted by Natalie Emerick)<\/p>\n

Both grad students hope to start getting more concrete answers from the data during the fall migration season. In the meantime, they continue to tweak and retrain the algorithm as it sharpens its accuracy at correctly pinpointing each species.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Motus Audio was born out of technology originally developed 10 years by a group of scientists, with federal government funding, to create a series of automated telemetry towers to detect animals carrying a certain type of transmitter.<\/p>\n

\u2018Audio curtain\u2019 across Canada<\/p>\n

Ryan Norris is an ecologist who has acoustic devices for the project in his Kitchener, Ont., backyard, and at his cabin just outside Algonquin Park.<\/p>\n

The University of Guelph integrative biology professor says the research is useful because it follows birds flying into the Canadian boreal forest \u2014 where it is difficult to get boots on the ground and track how many of them there are and what is happening to them over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose birds \u2026 whose final breeding destination is the boreal forest and whose final overwintering destination going the other way come fall might be somewhere in South America or Central America,\u201d said Norris.<\/p>\n

\"RyanRyan Norris is an associate professor within the department of integrative biology at the University of Guelph. (Norris Lab)<\/p>\n

While the AI model isn\u2019t perfect, he says, it is \u201cpretty good,\u201d given many of the sounds aren\u2019t things such as robins or cardinals chirping, making them hard to identify.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sounds coming from birds when they’re flying overhead is \u2026 very difficult to distinguish. Even if you heard it, if it was right beside your ear, you would have a hard time distinguishing the species.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norris says he\u2019s most excited to learn how species travel through the spring and fall seasons \u2014 giving us an \u201caudio curtain\u201d across Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds simple and people may go, \u2018Oh, didn’t we already know that?\u2019 But not necessarily. It’s very difficult to get good numbers on that. But if we get good numbers on that \u2026 then we can use it with other data to really get at questions about what might be actually causing the declines of these birds.\u201d<\/p>\n

WATCH | Video captures swallows congregating near Long Point, Ont., at night 5 years ago:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-789934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}